


An Almost Perfect Parabola

by yuletide_archivist



Category: Joan of Arcadia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-21
Updated: 2008-12-21
Packaged: 2018-01-25 02:00:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1625633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>New York City in December, you forget about the sky.</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Almost Perfect Parabola

**Author's Note:**

> Many, many thanks to my sisters who provided inspiration and beta work, and my name twin, who helped me in the very beginning. It was a little rough going for me, but I hope this is a happy story! Thanks also to the bordellinos, and everyone else who has listened to me whine. 
> 
> Written for Lovely Poet

 

 

"I want to see the tree."

Grace sighed audibly. "There's a tree. Look, there's a tree! Wow, so many trees! Who knew Manhattan contained such a variety of arboreta?"

"Ooh, big word, Grace. And you KNOW what I mean. I want to see THE tree. The one with the lights. The one with the ice skating, and all the people, where Al Roker sings and Tina Fey buys hot dogs!"

"From what I hear, she buys hot dogs all over the place."

"Friedman, how can you manage to make such an innocuous statement sound so dirty? And what is with your preoccupation with the female species and their reproductive patterns and habits? Don't get me wrong, I believe that the inherent obsession with procreation will eventually cause the male population to be rendered useless and possibly to lead to annihilation with by its own hands, therefore leaving women to inherit the earth, as they like to put it, but I thought you science geeks liked to think you were above Joe Six-Pack."

Joan and Luke groaned in tandem. "For the love of all that is holy - see that, God? I didn't take the Lord's name in vain! - can we please stay away from anything that might ever bring up Sarah Palin again? I don't think I can take another one of your lectures, Grace." Joan twisted another loop of her scarf around her mouth. "It's so cold!"

Grace stopped on the sidewalk and turned to face Joan, almost causing a pile-up in the group behind her. "Look here, Girardi, I know you want to see this stupidly massive Christmas tree that is basically a victim of state-sanctioned de-forestation and is something that has been alive for decades just to die slowly in front of thousands of people covered with bright lights to try and make it seem alive, but the decades of work against the patriarchal society of our ancestors should not merely be reduced to a joke perfect for a low-rated weekend comedy show. While I respect the lengths that Tina Fey has gone to stick it to the man, I still maintain that one of Sarah Palin's hunter friends should have abided by the law of hunting and shot the injured animal dead, or at least taken off her mike and put her back in Alaska."

"Dude, you so did not just come out in favor of censorship!"

"Self-censorship is an entirely different concept! And I have never been in favor of giving every idiot in this world a direct line to CNN and MSNBC. In fact, some people on those so-called news channels should have their licenses revoked and their mikes taken away."

"Still ticked about Olbermann's coverage of Hillary?" Luke put a hand on her arm. "She came out better than ever. I mean, even you said she'd change the world as Secretary of State."

"That is not the point, little Girardi. It's the principle of the matter, the fact that because she's a woman she was ripped into like she wasn't a person. And if you think for one second she's not going to be fodder for another KO discourse when she makes her first mistake or something goes wrong in Obama's administration, you have another think coming."

"Grace, lay off the dailykos and the Huffington Post for a while. Just breathe. We're in New York City!" Joan spun in a circle, and hit someone walking in the opposite direction, almost falling into the street. She regained her balance and was about to start protesting before Grace interrupted. 

"Okay, Joan of Sunnybrook Farm. Isn't it time for us to split up, anyway?"

Joan grimaced. "I don't see why you don't all want to come to see the tree with me." 

"Oh, you goyim. Always so self-serving in December, pushing your secular holiday on everyone else. Jews don't believe in trees covered with lights and a fat man who delivers presents."

"Shut it, Freidman. We all know you just want to spend as much time as possible at the Museum of Sex." Joan smacked the back of his head. 

Grace looked thoughtful, slouching into her leather jacket. "Actually, the perv has a point. The modern day incarnation of Santa Claus serves only to feed this extreme age of conspicuous consumerism, where everyone is judged by their outward appearance and furniture. The over-commercialization of what was once a beautiful religious holiday only makes the rich richer and the poor poorer. The capitalist, and may I add, sexist, pigs who run this country - and this city, actually - don't want any religion in the holiday of Christmas. It's actually much better if it's all about presents. Because most people are lazy, and therefore buy presents. And the cycle continues as if Marx never hooked up with Engels and figured this all out." 

Joan turned away from Grace. "I am officially not hearing anything you say anymore." She turned to Luke and Glynis. "You guys don't have this `I'm Jewish' excuse! You should want to be part of a great American tradition."

Glynis raised her hand as if they were still in physics class. "If my own personal interest in the Natural History museum didn't preclude going to see the tree, my enochlophia makes it a state of impossibility."

"Eno- what?" Joan's voice raised an octave. 

"Enochlophobia. The fear of crowds. Which, Joan, you have to admit - there are definitely going to be mass amounts of people in Rockefeller Center."

"Luke, can you stop trying to be the peace maker?" Joan glared at him, and then looked at the others, who were unfolding maps and trying to figure out which way was north. "Okay!" She threw her mittened hands up in defeat. "I give up. Everyone can go do their own separate thing, even though the whole point of this trip was to spend time together, but nooo, that doesn't matter. Grace needs to go see her propaganda as art exhibit, my stupid brother wants to go look at disgusting reproductions of the human body without skin, which, eeewww, and I want to see a tree that apparently sends a message that deforestation is okay to the world. But that's FINE." Joan huffed. "Are we at least eating together?"

Grace muttered, "Depends on what you're planning to eat."

"Don't think I didn't hear that. Let's say 7 pm at 59th Street Columbus Circle." Everyone nodded. "And we all have phones, right?" 

"Yes, Mom," Freidman answered, which earned him another smack to the head. 

"Okay then. To each their own." And Joan straightened her knit hat, adjusted her scarf, and walked away from the group. She really was going to give it to God next time she saw him. This road trip to New York idea was really not going the way she planned. 

*

Grace was warm inside MoMA, though she was a little incensed at the price. It was a museum for heaven's sake, supposed to be a learning experience for everyone, not just the wealthy. Which made it all the more ironic, she reflected, that she was standing here, looking at Communist propaganda posters as works of art. 

In reality, she was drawn to the exhibit to see the subtle ways the government manipulated the people, through things as seemingly innocuous as art. It turned out that governments (and dictators) had been manipulating its peoples since the beginning, which didn't surprise Grace at all, but added another layer to her "Big Brother is Watching" fear. 

She glanced in the corner of the room to see a security camera, and she wondered if the FBI was keeping track of everyone who came to this exhibit, the same way they kept track of "flagged" books checked out of the libraries. Grace shrugged to herself. She'd go down fighting, that's for sure. 

A phone started ringing, and Grace turned to shoot a dirty look at the person that forgot to turn off their cell phone and disturbed everyone in the exhibit. But as people checked their purses and pockets, the phone kept ringing. A security guard walked up to Grace. "Excuse me, miss, but you need to turn off your phone."

Grace looked up at him angrily. Of course he would pick her out of the crowd to reprimand, when in fact, she didn't even have a cell phone with her - oh. She reached into her pocket, and pulled out the offending phone. The screen told her Luke was calling, and she almost blushed. 

"I am so sorry," she told the guard, "but I really have to take this." Grace pushed her way out of the exhibit and went down to the cafeteria. As she was looking for a place to sit, the phone started trilling again. She flipped it open. 

"Dude, you'd so better not be calling me to try and set up a make out session, because I am so not in the mood and you know how much I wanted to see this. Plus, did it ever occur to you-"

Luke interrupted her. "I think I'm lost. Can you come find me?"

Grace snorted. "Mr. Navigator is lost? What happened, geek? I thought part of the beauty of this city was the way it was laid out in a grid so it's almost impossible to get lost!"

"Grace, I can't find the exhibit, and I need to see it so I can write my paper and get extra credit. Can you please help me? I took the 1 all the way down, I stayed in the first five cars, I got out . . . and now all I smell is fish and no one seems to know what I'm talking about." 

She sighed. "Fine. But you owe me. And if I end up smelling like fish this entire trip, you are so dead."

*

Joan stared at the line of people waiting their turn to ice skate in front of the tree. There were hundreds of people, it seemed, and judging from the number of tour buses she saw parked on her way in, she was pretty sure she wasn't exaggerating. People were jostling her as they tried to squeeze past her, and Joan had already taken pictures of dozens of people with their cameras. It was the couples she had the hardest time with, how they were so happy and disgustingly cute together. Of course, it made her think of Adam and how Grace used to say the same thing about the two of them. But Adam turned out to be a loser, and so Joan was here in front of the famous tree alone. 

"Beautiful, isn't it, Joan?" 

Joan whirled around. It was Granny-God, or at least, that's what Joan called her in her head. Which, now that she thought about it, probably wasn't so smart, with the whole God is omniscient thing. 

"Don't worry, I've been thought of as worse. Besides, I do look like a nice little grandma, don't I? I enjoy wearing all these knitted pieces of clothing. Also, some people are very nice and give up their seat on the buses and subways. Not that I ever take it, of course."

"Of course." Joan sighed, and turned back to look at the tree. 

"It really is something, isn't it?" 

"Yeah," Joan agreed, and felt her throat catch. She really wished she had someone to share it with. 

"I know this isn't an easy time for you, Joan, but being able to find beauty in times like these is crucial. And this tree, it makes people happy. Even if it perhaps allows for people to think it's okay to chop down trees sometimes."

Joan smiled in spite of herself. She did like this God, she had to admit. But it didn't help the fact that she was alone. 

"Ahh, Joanie, but you aren't alone. Look around you. Remember the people you came with. I'd never leave you." 

She turned to Granny-God. "Yeah, you won't leave me even when I want you to. And don't think I've entirely forgiven you for everything."

Granny-God just smiled. "All in good time, Joan. And you may think you don't want me around, but you really do."

"I think I know what I want a little better than you, thanks." She started to turn around, but Granny-God touched her elbow. 

"Omniscience, remember?" Joan found Granny-God's smile a little irritating, but that was the thing about God - God only found her frustrations amusing, it seemed. 

"Well, are you going to tell me what I'm supposed to do here?"

"Be yourself, Joan."

"That's it? you told me to go on a crazy long road-trip with the possibility of snow just to `be myself'?"

Granny-God smiled. "Oh, and don't be late to dinner."

"Wait!" Joan cried, but Granny-God had already turned around and started moving through the crowd. She gave that back-handed irritating little wave, and Joan knew she was on her own again. 

Except maybe, she thought, she was never really on her own. Omniscience and all that. 

*

"Cobblestones, Luke. You did read the directions to get here, didn't you?" Grace was hustling Luke down said cobblestones toward the Bodies Exhibit at the South Street Seaport. It did in fact smell like fish. A lot. 

"Of course I read the directions. I just read different directions than you."

"And of course you couldn't ask anyone for help."

"I asked you."

"But heaven forbid you ask someone on the street or, I don't know, maybe someone that lives around here?"

"I just couldn't figure out which way was north with all these buildings, and then I think I walked east instead of west, but then I was right back where I started-" Luke tried to explain in a slightly defensive tone. 

"Whatever, dude. We'll just go see these flesh-less bodies together. I have to admit, it seems pretty cool. I've always wanted to autopsy a body. I think this might be as close as I'll ever get."

"You could go to medical school, you know."

Grace just pulled him faster along. 

*

Luke tried to buy Grace's ticket for her, but her voice rose and Luke apologized quickly for even having the idea. 

"At least it doesn't smell like fish in here." Grace hid a smile; Luke was so cute when he tried to be positive about things Grace was being surly about. 

"Yeah, I guess. Now where are these bodies?" 

Luke consulted the map of the exhibit. "Where do you want to go first?" 

"Like I really care."

He sighed. "I heard the running one was pretty cool."

"Is there anyone eating? I bet that's totally sick." Grace looked at him with a wicked smile. Luke could only smile back - he wasn't sure what he would do without her at school next year. He pushed the thought from his head, and focused on the fact he was with her here now, this crazy, smart, attractive girl that wanted to see a dissected body eating. 

"Over here. It says she's in front of the tv."

Grace's voice was gleeful. "Now if that's not a statement on the deterioration and mind-numbing qualities of our society, I don't know what it."

They made their way over to the tv. Luke considered holding Grace's hand, but decided not to break the moment. 

"Wow, this is so cool!" Grace sounded like a kid on Christmas morning. Luke dragged his eyes away from Grace's face to focus on the body. After all, this was his extra credit project, he needed to pay attention. 

And found he did not want to pay attention at all. While Grace was leaning close to the body, seemingly fascinated by the muscles and tendons, Luke was staring at the esophageal tract and the intestines. He felt his own insides start to churn. 

Oh, no, he wasn't going to get nauseous, he couldn't, Grace would never let him live it down - 

"Uh, Grace, I think -" But he didn't finish. He turned on his heel and ran across the exhibit, trying to keep his eyes on the exit and not look at any of the other bodies. He pushed his way out the door, and ran until he couldn't anymore. Luke leaned over and puked on the sidewalk, cobblestones, that he read, were hundreds of years old. 

When he finished he took a deep breath, and inhaled a giant whiff of fish that almost made him gag again. And then Grace was there, and she took his glasses off for him and wiped them on her shirt. She rubbed his back and said, "I won't say anything," and Luke wanted to kiss her, right then and there, but figured he should at least rinse his mouth first. He was a nice guy, after all. 

"Thanks." He put his glasses back on and they moved away from the evidence. 

Grace took his hand, and they walked toward the water. At least, that was the direction Grace said they were going in. Luke honestly had no idea. 

*

Joan stood outside the Time Warner center, shifted her weight from foot to foot. It was freezing out there, and Joan realized that 59th Columbus Circle had a ton of different subway lines meeting underneath it, and that it was a pretty big area. 

Glynis texted to say she was on her way, and Freidman had sent her pictures from the Museum of Sex that Joan thought he sent to everyone, but there was no word from Luke or Grace. Joan spent a few minutes watching her breath appearing in front of her, and trying to make different shapes. Then she noticed people staring at her, and stopped. She wondered if anyone would put coins in her cup, if she just stood out here. She could tell people about God, but that would just get her sent somewhere worse than Dr. Dan and crazy camp. Joan crossed her arms and leaned against a J. Crew window. 

"Why couldn't we road trip somewhere warm, Girardi?" Joan looked up to see Grace and Luke walking toward her, their hands intertwined. She smiled in spite of herself. She heard some yelling, and saw Glynis dragging Freidman by his ear across the street. 

"I caught him showing porn to minors on the subway," Glynis said by way of explanation. 

"It's not porn! It's art! It was in a freaking museum!" Freidman rubbed his ear and looked at Glynis with a mix of irritation and respect. 

"Yeah, and now you're going to start the first porn museum with Larry Flynt, right?" Joan laughed. 

"Where are we going to eat? Luke's really hungry," Grace said, smiling. Luke smacked her shoulder and Grace only had to say, "Watch it, dude," to get an apologetic look from him. Joan made a mental note to find out what happened there. 

"I met some NYU students that recommended this place called China Wine. Or, I don't think that's its real name, but it's what everyone calls it. And they have good cheap food, and lots of wine. I think."

"Ahh, Chinese food, the December food of Jews everywhere!" 

Glynis smacked Freidman this time. "I don't think all Jews would appreciate you speaking on their behalf."

Joan whistled. "Go, Glynis!" 

Glynis smiled. "A girl's got to know when to say no."

They all laughed. Joan looked down at her feet, smiling, realizing that she really wasn't alone. Even though she spent most of the day away from these people, they would always be there for her. She would be okay, even without Adam to take a picture with at Rockefeller Center. 

"Look!" Glynis pointed to the sky. Freidman didn't look up and said, "I know, the curve of the earth makes it appear that the sky is an almost perfect parabola with degrees of-"

Glynis put her mittened hand over Freidman's mouth. "It's snowing!"

"Oh my gosh!" Joan exclaimed. Even Grace looked up, hoping to see something. 

The snowflakes started falling, thick and wet. Luke stuck out his tongue to try and catch one, and Joan started giggling. Freidman was doing a "snow-dance" and he grabbed Glynis' hand so both of them were dancing around awkwardly. 

Grace looked at her friends, and then at Luke. "Come here, Barf Boy," she said, and kissed him straight on his lips. Luke's eyes went wide, and his glasses fogged up, but he wasn't going to be the one that broke the kiss. 

"Hey," Joan said suddenly. "Why does the snow smell like fish?"

Luke and Grace burst into laughter. Joan looked at them, puzzled, as everyone started walking uptown toward the restaurant, still dancing and laughing in the snow. Freidman was talking about a giant snow fight in Central Park if the snow stuck. 

"No, really, guys! Does snow always smell like fish? Is it because we're near the water and sea water got evaporated? Is this salty snow? Guys! Luke! Grace! Freidman! Wait! It does smell like fish!"

Joan sighed, and started chasing them down the street. It was good to have friends, she thought. Definitely good. 

 


End file.
